A court in the United Arab Emirates has sentenced 17 Indian nationals to death for killing a Pakistani man in an attack last year, news reports said Tuesday.
The murder took place in Sharjah, an emirate north of Dubai, in January 2009 following a dispute over an illegal liquor business, the Times of India reported.
A shariah court, which applies Islamic law, sentenced the 17 men to death after evidence, including DNA tests, showed they had stabbed the victim to death, the report said.
The convicted men are aged between 17 and 30 years, DPA reported.
It was the highest number of death sentences handed down at one time in the Emirates, the PTI news agency reported.
The court said that the violence was a result of the turf war between groups selling illegal alcohol in and around labour camps in Sharjah.
Sharjah has the toughest restrictions on the sale of alcohol of all the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates.
Meanwhile, India was seeking consular access to the sentenced men.
"The government will offer all legal help to the men and I have asked our consul general in Dubai to follow up the case personally and file for an appeal at the earliest by engaging a lawyer," Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi told the Times of India.